Thursday, November 9, 2006

A changed political landscape crawled across the country Tuesday night. With polls closing first on the east coast, initial numbers showed more than a few Democratic upsets early in the evening  and they only got bigger as the night progressed. One of the first big LOSERS (as called out by Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's "Midterm Midtacular") was Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, the number three person in the Senate for the Republicans, an avid Bush supporter and conservative knee-slapper. The two term senator and would-be presidential hopeful was ousted 59%-41%, with FoxNews, CNN, and MSNBC all calling the election for challenger Bob Casey before 9 p.m.

As the night moved forward and the polls closed in the Central and Mountain Time zones, what would have been huge upsets just two years ago turned into sweet reality for the Democrats. Iowa was perhaps the most overlooked of allstates, with the Democrats gaining two new House seats, along with having the first Democratic governor elected after a sitting Democratic governor in over 40 years.

As a lifelong Iowan who has maintained residence in a Jim Leach-represented district since birth, I went to bed last nightthinking that perhaps that would finally change in the morning. When I woke up, it was confirmed. I'd like to think that many things changed in America on that night, but, before anyone can start talking about drastic changes, we have to see some evidence of that change. The country has put their faith in a party that came to power this year without any real specific issue changes, other than "look what the Republicans did." American's will expect more than just rhetoric in the two years tocome, and hopefully the new party in power will give us just that.